The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-10-01
shooting at Concord bridge as being
'heard round the world"

America is helpful standard to the
nations. God is the standard of the
religious man. Religion reminds man
that the God who rules us is perfect
being. There is no wrong in him.
Absolute in the perfection of his puri
ty he stands. The religious soul sets
this high standard before it and strives
to approach it. The supreme advan-
tage of spirituality is in this, that it
furnishes clear, safe and successful
plan of life. The man of the world
has no definite aim. He misses the
noble enthusiasm of good purpose;
and in the hour of danger he has no
moral energy laid up in store.
| Then there is the motive of love.
Men will do more for love than for
anything else in the world.
Love will acc )mplish the greatest
task that can be imagined. Love will
open the miser's purse. You can't
think of anything more difficult than
that. Love will cause the spendthrift
to save, the lazy to work, the drunkard
to abstain. Love will Danish needful
slumber that it may watch by the bed
side of the sick. When you get at the
hidden, secret springs of nearly all
noble actions one will find that love is
there. Where love to God exists you
will find spiritual strength. For if
men are kept back from evil deeds, or
even evil thoughts, by the love they
bear to wife and children, they will
be kept back from wrong doing by the
love they bear to God.
Once more, religion reveals the I'M
fitness of sin. To the instructed and
experienced Christian sinful pleasures
and pursuits look awfully tame. Gid
ing looks dull beside pure gold. He
who can afford the paintings of the
masters puts his chromos out of the
window. Every day is fatal to the
paste jewels; the diamond keeps its
luster forever. Religion commends
itself. Irreligion sinks away from
its presence.
1 enjoy the satire of Emerson, who,
in describing certain Bostonians of the
last generation, said that their epito-
me of the Gospel was: "By taste are
ye saved" But / submit that the
taste which led to the reading of the
best books, the patronage of the best
arts, the device of the best topics of
conversation, even to the keeping of the
best company, contained good deal
more of spirituality than we can find
in the present predominant population,
which offers many prayers, and cele-
brates many gorgeous ceremonials and
| turns out, en- naosse, to witness prize
fight between two representative ruff
fans for an object of charity. There
is spiritual force in good taste, and re-
ligion develops good taste. The spirit
ual man is shocked at the suggestion
of sin. 81 cannot 1 cannot!" That
is the way he meets temptation.
Souls are lost not when this sense of
the fitness of things is alive and keen,
but when that faculty is sleeping. That
| is true in the most deplorable instances.
Take those unhappy creatures who
| live the life of shame. There's back
ground to their dark and dreadful pic
ture that is full of light. Once they
were pure. Once they walked the
fields Of life as in an undesecrated par
adise. Once they could look straight
into a loving mothers face. No out
ragged conscience haunted them day
and night with awful reproaches.
There had to be beginning. Don't you
suppose that religious conviction and
resolution present in the mind and
heart at that time, would have been
good thing9
Because of that in days of old
man, tempted as we are, cried sect
thee behind me Satan" Take our dis
sipated young men, sneering about
young mems Christian associations
thinking that they are drinking not only
the wine of champagne's sunny hill
sides, but the very wine of life. 1t
will be said of some of them decade
hence: "Isn't it too bad Such gift
ed young mani Such charming fell
low! Such disappointment to his
friends!'' That is what some of those
young fellows are going to just as fast
as they can go. Don't you think that
the young man who goes to church,
helps along, perhaps, in the Sunday
school or mission, selects decent COM
pany, reads now and then good book,
attends to his business, lives constant
ly for higher than selfish ends-don't
you suppose that religion is good
thing for that young man? Don't you
think that the other fellow might bet
ter have had some touch of it in him?
And so on through the list. "Be
strong in the Lord" Religion is a
source Of strength.
But before l close let me emphasize
one point. Religion should be culti-
waited not as a spasmodic emetic-not
as an annual plant that grows up
quickly, blossoms very handsomely,